A tiny obscure team of parks workers is responsible for the upkeep of hundreds of New York City’s most famous landmarks — and it’s racing the clock these days.
The crew of six — solely responsible for the cleaning, repair and conservation of hundreds of historic monuments as part of the city’s small but mighty Monuments Conservation Program — is trying to finish up its necessary outdoor work before Old Man Winter blows in.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” public-art conservator and leader John Saunders told The Post.
Most bronze statues, including Grand Army Plaza’s Bailey Fountain, are cleaned each year and recoated with a wax application to protect them from corrosion. Gabriella Bass
The Parks Department workers are tasked with regularly cleaning more than 800 monuments, which are regularly damaged from the elements, pigeons, car exhaust and vandals, Saunders said.
“It’s not just bronze or statuary – the collection includes things like the Unisphere, the Washington Square Arch and modern pieces,” he said, as a three-person crew recently descended on Grand Army Plaza’s Bailey Fountain with blowtorches.
The fountain is one of more than 250 sculptures the units tends to.
John Saunders oversees an obscure city conservation team of just six people who provide the cleaning, repair and preservation of hundreds of New York’s historic monuments. Gabriella Bass
Most local bronze statues, including the fountain, are cleaned annually and recoated with a wax application to protect from acid rain or car-exhaust corrosion, the 19-year Parks veteran explained.
“The finish they’re putting on now helps protect and stabilize it,” Saunders said of the Ancient Greek-inspired fountain.
The Bailey Fountain re-waxing comes after crews raced to replace loose stones supporting its large statues in October, when workers discovered stones “so undercut” that the workers thought the century-old piece could come tumbling down.
One of this year’s projects included a cleanup of the Continental Army Plaza in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Getty Images
The group has kept a monthly calendar of its site visits since the program’s launch in the 1990s, with work typically performed in the same month when an event anniversary, birthday or holiday is celebrated, said Jonathan Kuhn, director of NYC Parks’ arts and antiquities.
For example, many of the city’s 275 war memorials were spruced up ahead of Veterans Day ceremonies this month, he said.
The team also plans ahead to ensure that sites that share anniversaries, such as the Flight 587 Memorial in Belle Harbor, Queens, and Chinatown’s Dr. Sun Yat-sen Monument in Manhattan — occurances that are both remembered Nov. 12 — are each particularly cared for leading up to related events.
“We want to avoid cycles of neglect and revival. … We want to solve small problems before they become big problems, like water getting in and causing stones to fall apart,” Kuhn said.
The restored Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza is among the crew’s responsibilities. PAUL MARTINKA cell 718.810.5185
The group, which does most of its own research, keeps swaths of matching paints and stone pieces on hand for when a monument needs a face lift, he said.
Each routine cleaning takes a few hours, but in some cases, crews can spend up to a month at a site.
Aside from a baseline $750,000 maintenance budget, the crew taps dedicated endowment funds for many individual monuments – and Saunders argues that the crew actually saves taxpayer dollars with annual preventative work.
“We save the city money,” he said, as routine repairs stave off “emergencies” or lengthy, expensive capital projects.
“We keep things looking good.”
Some restorative projects are annual, while others can take several years. Gabriella Bass
Major revamps this year included the restoration of` the 1970s Bronx art installation Puerto Rican Sun — which was left in such disrepair that the work closed in 2024 after a piece of it broke off and fell to the ground.
The original artist, Rafael Ferrer, signed off on all the paints the crew meticulously used, based on the artist’s instructions, Saunders said.
Other notable overhauls were a “head-to-toe” cleanup of Bronx’s Victory Memorial Park thanks to $85,000 in donated services, and the Kimlau Memorial Arch in Chinatown, which is undergoing repairs after years of cracking columns, Kuhn said.
“We keep things looking good,” Saunders said. Gabriella Bass
The winter season provides ample time for the care of Parks’ other “cultural artifacts” such as Dutch gravestones from the 1700s, cannons and even carousel figures, Saunders said.
Smaller repair jobs on the roster this winter include a bent 1910s-era Parks plaque and a vandalized lions’ head spout around town, both of which will be managed inside the department’s repair shops.
Some of the team’s biggest repairs, such as the multi-year restoration of the Grand Army Plaza Arch, are too large or located in such remote locations that they can’t be easily accessed every year – and require the help of several summer apprentices.
In 2024, interns were lifted 10 stories in the air to polish the historic horses atop the 134-year-old Grand Army icon.
This year’s interns helped to complete a full restoration of the George Washington at Valley Forge equestrian sculpture at Continental Army Plaza, as well as repaint portions of the massive modernist sculpture Shadows and Flags in the Financial District.
“They’re out learning how to hot wax, [plus] stone masonry work, cleaning and repair work,” Saunders said.
“We take care of so many different things,” he said.